The new system from Tyler Technologies subsidiary Rapid Financial Solutions will eliminate the need for paper checks and instead give the option of a payment card.
"This is a solution that allows jurors to receive a payment card when they report for jury service, so when a payment is issued, we send the information to Rapid Solutions," said Midland County Treasurer Sara Gray.
"(Rapid Financial Solutions) will send out a text or email to that specific juror, and that juror can sign up for direct deposit, a physical check, or the funds will go to the card that they received once they reported for jury service."
The software will then track those funds for approximately 90 days. After the 90 days, if the funds have not been cashed or directly deposited, they will be returned to Midland County.
"By law, if those funds are not cashed or deposited after 90 days, we get to keep those funds," Gray said. "It will greatly reduce (Midland County's) check fraud, because right now we just send out checks, and we do have a lot of check fraud come through on that account."
Gray hopes the new system will add more solutions for jurors, where they do not keep a $10 check that sits on their kitchen table for months on end.
"It also allows them to still do charitable donations," Gray told commissioners. "A lot of of times, (jurors) forget to sign that form for the charitable donation, but when you get that text or email, you can decide to do that charitable donation right then and there for that juror's payment."
Commissioners asked what the fees associated with the electronic jury payment program would generate for the county. Gray said it would cost $16,000 per year, adding that not only will it save the county funds by not issuing paper checks for jury payments, but it would save dollars on the administrative cost of having to manually send out the paper checks.
"Rapid Financial Solutions also deals with tracking the funds and getting it back to (Midland County)," Gray said. "As we grow, we are going to have more and more payments to be issued, and (Rapid Financial Solutions) deals with all of that."
Additionally, Gray told commissioners that the county is trying to get away from issuing paper checks as much as possible because of issues such as check fraud.
"We started using positive pay, where we send to the bank the checks that we issue, and so that way only the checks that we issue are cleared," she said to commissioners.
The adoption date for the new electronic jury payment has yet to be publicly announced.
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